Wild Northern Scenes Part 7

CHAPTER XIII.

A JOLLY TIME FOR THE DEER--HUNTING ON THE WATER BY DAYLIGHT--MUD LAKE FUNEREAL SCENERY--A NEW WAY OF TAKING RABBITS--THE NEGRO AND THE MARINO BUCK--A COLLISION.

As we came down to the lake in the morning to perform our ablations, we saw a fine deer on the opposite sh.o.r.e, feeding upon the pond lilies that grew along in the shallow water. It was nearly half a mile from us, and while we were looking at it, four others came walking carelessly out of the tall gra.s.s upon the beach, and commenced playing, as we have seen lambs do, on the sandy sh.o.r.e. They would run here and there, back and forth, at full speed along the sands, leap high into the air, kicking up their heels, and performing all the various antics of which animals so supple and active may be supposed capable. We saw one fellow leap, with a clear bound, over two that were standing looking out over the water, and run some fifty rods up the beach, as if all the hounds in Christendom were at his tail, and then wheel gracefully, and return with equal speed to his companions, when they all commenced jumping and bounding, and running up and down along the sh.o.r.e, as if they were out on a regular spree, and were determined to be jolly. After half an hour of exceedingly active play, they hoisted their white flags, and went bounding over the meadow into the woods.

The deer that was feeding paid no further attention to them than to raise his head and look quietly, and perhaps contemptuously at them occasionally, while he chewed his breakfast, that he was picking up in the shape of lily pads upon the surface of the water. Spalding and a boatman paddled across the lake to make Mm a morning call. It is a curious fact that one skilled in the art will paddle or scull one of these light boats to within a few rods of a deer while feeding, in plain open sight, provided always that the wind blows _from_ the direction of the animal, and no noise is made by the boatman. The deer will feed on, and the time for paddling is while his head is down.

When he raises it to look about him, in whatever position the boatman is, he must remain immovable. If his paddle is up, it must remain so; not a motion must be made, or the game will be off, with a snort and a rush, for the sh.o.r.e and the woods. The deer may, and probably will look, with a vacant stare, directly at the approaching boat without its curiosity being in the least excited, and then go to feeding again. The marksman must take his aim while the game is feeding; when it raises its head high in the air, throws forward its ears and gazes at him for a moment with a wild and startled look, then is his time to fire. Five seconds at the longest is all that is allowed him when he sees these motions, for within that time, with its fears thoroughly aroused, the game will be plunging for the shelter of the woods.

The boatman paddled Spalding quietly and silently to within twelve or fifteen rods of the deer that was feeding, when a column of white smoke shot suddenly up from the bow of the boat; the sharp crack of the rifle rung out over the water, and the deer went down. Spalding was a proud man as he returned to us with a fine fat spike buck in his boat.

These little lakes are probably sixty-five miles from the settlements, allowing for the winding course of the rivers. Just above, where the river enters, is a dam, built of logs some fifteen feet high, erected by the lumbermen the last winter to hold back the water, so as to float their logs down from this to Tupper's Lake, and so on down the Rackett to the mills away below. Around this dam is the last carrying place between this and Mud Lake, over which our boatmen trudged with their boats, like great turtles with their sh.e.l.ls upon their backs.

This is still called Bog River, and though above the dam to Mud Lake, where it takes its rise, it is deep and sluggish, yet it is doing it honor overmuch to dignify it by the name of a river. It was large enough, however, to float our little craft. We left our baggage-master here with most of our luggage, to perfect his operations in the way of jerking venison, intending to return the next day. We might have left everything without a guard, so far as human depredations were concerned. No bolts or bars would be necessary for its protection. In the first place, n.o.body would visit the spot, and if they did, our property would be perfectly protected by the law of the woods. It would be doubtless carefully inspected by any curious banter pa.s.sing that way, but theft or robbery are unknown here. True, a bottle of good liquor, if handled by a visitor, might lose somewhat of its contents, but it would be drank to the health of the owner, and in a spirit of good fellowship, and not of theft, all which would be regarded by woodsmen as strictly within rule, there being, as Hank Wood said, "no law agin it."

We left the first chain of ponds, and rowed some ten miles up the deep and sluggish but narrow channel of the river, startling every little way a deer from its propriety by our presence as it was feeding along the sh.o.r.e. Few sportsmen ever visit this remote region, and it is above the range of the lumbermen. We came to some rapids near the outlet of the second chain of ponds, around which we walked, and up which the boatmen pushed their little craft. These rapids are a quarter of a mile in length, with no great amount of fall, but still enough to prevent the pa.s.sage up them of a loaded boat. Directly at the head of these rapids is the "second chain of ponds," three pleasant little lakelets, of from two to four hundred acres each, surrounded by dense forests, and sh.o.r.es in the main walled in by huge boulders and broken rocks. We pa.s.sed through these, in which were several loons, or great northern divers, quietly floating, and as they watched us, sending forth their clear and clarion voices over the water. We took each a pa.s.sing shot at them, but with no other effect than to make them dive quicker and deeper, and stay under longer than usual; at the flash of our rifles they would go down, and in a few minutes would be again on the surface sixty rods from us, laughing aloud, as it were, with their clear and quavering voices, at our impotent attempts to shoot them.

We left the "second chain of ponds" by the narrow and sluggish inlets, still the Bog River, here so small that the boatman's oars spanned the narrow channel, and as crooked a stream as it is possible for one to be. It flows for miles through a low and marshy region, with dense alderbushes cl.u.s.tering along the sh.o.r.e, and scattering fir-trees, dead at the top, standing between these and the forests in the background.

The bottom, much of the way, is of clean yellow sand, in which are imbedded millions of clams, resembling, in every respect, those of the ocean beach. Some of these we opened, and found the living bivalves in appearance precisely like their kindred of the salt water. I have seen occasionally muscle sh.e.l.ls in other streams, and along the sh.o.r.es of the lakes, but I never before saw any such as these save near the ocean, where the salt water ebbs and flows, and not even there in such quant.i.ties. One might gather barrels and barrels of them, large and apparently fat, and yet there would be hundreds or thousands of barrels left. The mink, the muskrat, and other animals that hunt along the water, and have a taste for fish, have a good time of it among them, for we saw bushels of sh.e.l.ls in places where the fish had been extracted and devoured.

We arrived at Mud Lake towards evening, and pitched our tent on a little rise of ground on the north side, a few rods back from the lake, among a cl.u.s.ter of spruce and balsam, and surrounded by a dense growth of laurel and high whortleberry bushes. We saw a deer occasionally on our route, and the banks of the stream in many places were trodden up by them like the entrance to a sheep-fold. Why this sheet of water should be called Mud Lake is a mystery, for though gloomy enough in every other respect, its bed is of sand, and it is surrounded by a sandy beach from fifteen to forty feet wide. It is perhaps four miles in circ.u.mference, its waters generally shallow, and so covered with pond lilies, and skirted with wild gra.s.s, as to form the most luxuriant pasture for the deer and moose to be found in all this region. Of all the lakes I have visited in these northern wilds, this is the most gloomy. Indeed it is the only one that does not wear a cheerful and pleasant aspect. It seems to be the highest water in this portion of the wilderness, lying, as one of our boatmen expressed it, "up on the top of the house." In only one direction could any higher land be seen, and that was a low hill on the western sh.o.r.e, not exceeding fifty feet in height. There are no tall mountain peaks reaching their heads towards the clouds, overlooking the waters; no ranges stretching away into the distance; no gorges or spreading valleys; no sloping hillsides, giving back the sunlight, or along which gigantic shadows of the drifting clouds float. All around it are fir, and tamarac, and spruce of a stinted and slender growth, dead at the top, and with lichens and moss hanging down in sad and draggled festoons from their desolate branches. It is, in truth, a gloomy place, typical of desolation, which it is well to see once, but which no one will desire to visit a second time. We noticed on the sandy beach tracks of the wolf, the panther, the moose, and in one place the huge track of a bear. He must have been of monstrous growth, judging by the impression of his great feet and claws in the sand. But we saw none of these animals, and so gloomy is the place, so sepulchral, such an air of desolation all around, that it brings over the mind a strong feeling of sadness and gloom, and we resolved not to tarry beyond the nest morning, even for the chance of taking a moose, a panther, or a bear.

We pitched our tent, as I said, a little way back from the lake, near a cold spring, that came boiling up through the white sand in a little basin, eight feet wide, the bottom of which, like that on the bank of Tupper's Lake, was all in commotion, boiling and bubbling, as the water forced its way up through it. I was in the forward boat as we approached the lake, and was surprised to see the number of deer feeding upon the lily pads in the shallow water, and the wild gra.s.s that grew along the sh.o.r.e. Some stood midside in the water, some with only the line of their backs and heads above it. Some were close along the sh.o.r.e, feeding upon the gra.s.s that grew there. Others still were nibbling at the leaves of the moosewood upon the bank, and one large buck stood by the side of a fir tree, rubbing his neck up and down against it, as if scratching himself against its rough bark. We had not been discovered, and waited for the other boats to arrive.

Great was the astonishment of my companions, when they saw the number of deer that were feeding in this little lake. Neither of them had ever seen the like, nor had I, save on one occasion, and that was in a small lake, the name of which I have forgotten, lying a few miles beyond the head of the Upper Saranac.

"You see that clump of low balsam trees on that point yonder," said my boatman, as we lay upon our oars, pointing in the direction indicated.

"Well, from that spot, three years ago, I shot a moose out upon the bar there, as it was feeding upon the lily pads and flag gra.s.s.

"I had heard from an old Indian hunter, about this lake, and the abundance of game to be found here, and I made up my mind to see it.

So another hunter and myself agreed to come up here in July, and take a look at matters, and find out whether the old copperhead told the truth or not. We started about the middle of July, with our rifles and provisions for a fortnight, and came up. We saw any quant.i.ty of deer on the way. On the second chain of ponds, we saw, as we were rowing along, a large panther walk out on to the top of a great boulder, and look around, lashing his sides with his long tail, and then sit down on his haunches with his tail curled around his feet, just as you've seen a cat do. He was too far off for us to shoot him, and he saw us before we got within proper distance, and stole away into the woods, and we pa.s.sed on. As we rounded the point just below the lake there, and looked out upon the broad water, I saw the moose I spoke of, feeding. We sat perfectly still, and permitted the boat to drift back down the stream until we were out of sight. We then landed, and I crept carefully and silently to that clump of fir trees. I had my own and my companion's rifle both properly loaded. Having got a right position, I sighted for a vital part, and fired. The animal rushed furiously forward two or three rods, with its head lowered as if making a lunge at an enemy, then stopped, and looked all around, standing with its back humped up, and its short stump of a tail working and writhing at a furious rate. I sighted it again with the other rifle, and pulled. The animal plunged furiously for again for a few rods, stopped a moment, and then settled slowly down, and fell over on its side, dead. It was a cow-moose and would weigh as killed five or six hundred pounds. I was a pretty proud man then, as that was my first moose, and about as big feeling a chap as was Squire Smith the other day, when he brought down that buck. I have shot two others here since, one at each visit I have made."

The season for moose hunting along the water pastures, was nearly over. They go back upon the hills in August, the food there being by that time abundant. The tracks we saw were old ones, the animals having pa.s.sed there several days previously. I would not have it supposed that the moose are abundant in any portion of this wilderness. They have come to be few and far between, and exceedingly wary at that. I could hear of none having been killed the present season; but that there are some left, as well as bears, and wolves, and panthers, the tracks we saw gave unmistakable evidence.

We saw no appearance of trout in this lake, or in the outlet of it above the upper chain of ponds. The stream swarmed with chub and dace, a rare circ.u.mstance with the streams of this region. Towards evening, we saw numbers of little grey wood rabbits, hopping around among the dense undergrowth on the ridge where our tents were situated, squatting themselves down and c.o.c.king up their long ears, as they paused occasionally to examine the strange visitors who had come among them. They were very tame, not seeming to regard our presence as a thing of much danger to them.

"Seeing those rabbits," remarked Smith, "reminds me of an anecdote of my boyhood, which at the time occasioned me an amount of mortification equalled only by the amus.e.m.e.nt it affords me, when I think of it in after years. On my father's farm was a bush field, a place that had been chopped and burned over, and then left to grow up with bushes, making an excellent cover for wild wood rabbits. I had seen them hopping about, when I went to turn away the cows in the morning, or after them at night. I had a longing to 'make game' of them. I had a brother a good deal older than myself, who was as fond of a joke as I was of the rabbits, and who was quite as ready to make game of me, as I was of them; so he told me, one day to put an apple on a stick over their paths, high enough to be just above their reach, and a handful of Scotch snuff on a dry leaf on the ground under it, and the rabbits, while smelling for the apple, would inhale the snuff, and sneeze themselves to death in no tune. Well, I was a child then and simple enough to be gammoned by this rigmarole. I set the apple and the snuff, but I got no rabbit, while I did get laughed at hugely for my credulity. This satisfied me that people should never impose upon the simplicity of childhood. I remember my mortification on the occasion.

It was so long ago that it stands out by itself, a mere fragment of memory, with _all_ beyond it a blank, and a wide gap out this side. It is an isolated fact, fixed in my recollection by the pain it occasioned me."

"Your anecdote of the rabbits," said the Doctor, "reminds me of a story told of a Dutchman, who discovered an owl on a limb above him, and noticed that its face, and great round eyes, followed him always as he walked around the tree, without its body moving at all. Seeing this he concluded in his wisdom, that he would travel round the tree, till the owl twisted its head off in watching him. So round and round he went for an hour, and stopped only by having the conviction forced upon his mind that the owl had a swivel in its neck."

"Strange," remarked Spalding, "how the hearing of one story reminds us of another. I always admired the 'Arabian Nights,' because the stories contained in that work hang together so like a string of onions, or a braid of seed corn. The first is a sort of introduction to the second, and the second an usher to the third, and so on through the whole. But why the story of the Dutchman and the owl should remind me of another, in which an old negro and a bellicose ram were the actors, is a matter I do not pretend to understand, unless it be the extreme absurdity of both. A gentleman of my acquaintance long ago (he was a middle-aged man when I was a small boy. He was an upright and a good man. He has gone to his rest, and sleeps in an honored grave, having upon the simple stone above him no lying epitaph), had an old negro who rejoiced in the name of Pompey, and a Merino buck, the latter a valiant animal, that was ready to fight with anybody, or anything, that crossed his path. Between him and the 'colored person,' was an 'eternal distinction,' an active and irreconcilable antagonism, that developed itself on every possible occasion. The old Guinea man was winnowing wheat one day, with an old-fashioned fan (did any of you ever see one of these primitive machines for separating wheat from the chaff, used by our fathers before the fanning mill was invented? It was an ingenious contrivance, by which a man with a strong back and of a strong const.i.tution, could clean some twenty bushels in a single day). While stooping over to fill his fan with unwinnowed grain, the buck, taking advantage of his position, came like a catapult against him, and sent him like a ball from a Paixhan gun, head foremost into the chaff. Great was the astonishment, but greater the wrath of Pompey, and dire the vengeance that he denounced against his a.s.sailant. Gathering himself up, and rubbing the part battered by the attack of his enemy, he retreated around the corner of the barn, and procuring a rock weighing some twenty pounds, returned to the presence of his foe, who was quietly eating the wheat that the negro had been cleaning, evidently regarding it as the legitimate spoils of victory.

Getting down on all fours, and managing to hold the stone against his head, Pompey challenged his enemy to combat. The buck, nothing loth, drew back to a proper distance, and shutting both eyes, came like a battering _ram_ against the stone on the other side of which was the negro's head. As might have been expected, the challenger went one way, and the challenged the other by the recoil, both knocked into insensibility by the concussion. Pompey was taken up for dead, but his wool and the thickness of his scull saved him. He gave the buck a wide berth after that. He regarded him always with a sort of superst.i.tious awe, never being able to comprehend how he b.u.t.ted him through that big stone. Explain the matter to him ever so scientifically, demonstrate it on the clearest principles of mechanical philosophy, still Pompey would shake his head, and as he walked away, would mutter to himself, 'de debbil helps dat ram, _sure_. Dere's no use in dis n.i.g.g.e.r's tryin'

to come round _him_. He's a witch, dat ram is, and ain't nuffin else.'"

CHAPTER XIV.

A DEER TRAPPED--THE RESULT OF A COMBAT--A QUESTION OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY DISCUSSED.

We returned the next day to our camping ground. On the "Lower Chain of Ponds," we found our pioneer and his goods all safe, no visitors having pa.s.sed that way in our absence. Smith knocked over a deer on our pa.s.sage down. I have said that just above our camp was a dam. It was made in this wise: first, great logs were laid up, across the stream, in the same fashion as the side of a log house, to the height of about twelve feet, properly secured, and upon these, other and smaller logs were laid, side by side, transversely, and sloping up the stream at an angle of forty-five degrees, like one side of the roof of a house. These long, slender logs, reached out over and beyond those that were laid up across the stream, the lower part covered with brush, and then with earth, so as to make a tight dam, the upper ends, even when the dam was full, extending several feet above the top water line. These logs, or perhaps they had better be called large and long poles, for, when compared with the foundation timbers, they were nothing more, have, of course, above where they are covered with brush and earth, interstices, or crevices, between them.

On our return, and as we came in sight of the dam, I, being in the forward boat, saw a small deer, laying stretched out upon these poles, dead, hanging, as it were, by one foot. My impression was, that it had been shot, and dragged up there, and left by our pioneer for the present. We found, however, upon examination, that the deer had walked up on the dam, probably to take a look at what was below, and on the other side, when his foot slipped down between the poles, and he was caught as in a trap. His leg was badly broken, and nearly severed by his efforts to get loose, and the bark of the poles was worn away within reach of his struggles. He had died where he thus got hung; and there he was, stone dead, but not yet cold, when we found him. He was a fine, fat, young deer, and died by one of the thousand accidents to which the wild animals of the forest, as well as man, are exposed.

Upon relating this incident to an old hunter, I was told by him that he once, while out in the woods, came upon the skeletons of two large bucks, that, in fighting, had got their horns so interlocked and wedged together, that they could not separate them, and thus, locked in the death grapple, they had starved and died. There lay their bones, the flesh eaten from them by the beasts and carrion birds, and, bleached by the sun and the storms, the two skulls with the horns still interlocked; and the narrator told me he had them yet at home, fast together, as he found them, as one of the curiosities to be met with in the Rackett woods.

"I've been thinking," said Spalding, in his quiet way, as we sat towards evening, looking out over the pleasant little lake, watching the shadow chasing the retiring sunlight up the sides of the opposite hills, "I've been thinking how differently we act, and feel, and talk--aye, and think, too--out here in these old woods, from what we do when at home and surrounded by civilization. However we four may deny being old, we cannot certainly claim to be young. We have all reached the meridian of life, and though feeling few, if any, of the infirmities of age, still, our next move will be in the downhill direction. Yet, notwithstanding all this, we talk and act, and think, and feel, too, like boys. I do not speak this reproachfully, but as a fact which develops a curious attribute of the human mind."

"Well," replied the Doctor, "while it may be curious, it is exceedingly natural. We have thrown off the restraints which society imposes upon us; we have thrown off the cares which the business of life heaps upon us. We have gone back for a season to the freedom, the sports, the sights, the exercises which delighted our boyhood. And can it be called strange that the feelings, the thoughts, and emotions of our youth should come welling up from the long past, or that with the return of boyish emotions, the language and actions of boyhood should be indulged in again?"

"You will find," said Smith, "your old feelings of sobriety, of thoughtfulness, your cautiousness, coming back just in proportion as you tire of this wilderness life, and that by the time you are ready to return to civilization, you will have become as staid, sober, and reflective men of the world, as when you started, with as strict a guard upon your expression of sentiment, or opinion, as ever."

"It is that 'guard' of which you speak," remarked Spalding, "over the emotions, the sentiments of the heart, stifling their expression, and chaining down under a placid exterior their manifestations, that const.i.tutes one of the broad distinctions between youth and manhood.

It is when that guard is set, that the process of fossilization, so to speak, begins; and if no relaxing agency intervenes, the heart becomes cold and hard, even before white hairs gather upon the head. I often imagine that if men who really _think_, who have the power of a.n.a.lyzation, of weighing causes and measuring results, would dismiss that rigid espionage over themselves, would stand in less awe of the world, in less dread of its accusation of change, and with the fearless frankness of youth, declare the truth, and stand boldly up for the right as they, _at the time_, understand it to be, without reference to consistency of present views and opinions with those of the past, the world would be much better off; progress would have vastly fewer obstacles to contend against. But it is not every man, even of those who _think_, who in politics, in religion, in science, in anything involving a possible charge of inconsistency, of the desertion of a party, a sect, or a principle, dare avow a change of conviction or opinion, however such change may exist. This should not be so. It belittles manhood, and makes slaves and cowards of men.

It is a proud prerogative, this ability and power of thinking. It is a priceless privilege, this freedom of thought and opinion, and he is a craven who moves on with the heedless and thoughtless crowd, conscious of error, himself a hypocrite and a living lie, through fear of the charge of 'inconsistency,' the accusation of change. 'Speak your opinions of to-day,' says Carlyle, 'in words hard as rocks, and your opinions of to-morrow in words just as hard, even though your opinions of to-morrow may contradict your opinions of to-day.' There is a fund of true wisdom in this beautiful maxim, if men would appreciate it. It would correct a vast deal of error in politics, in religion, in philosophy, in the social relations of life. Times change, and struggle against it as they may, men's convictions will change with the times. The man who says that his opinions never alter, is to me either a knave or a fool. For a thinking man to remain stationary, when everything else is on the move, is a simple impossibility. Time was when the stage coach was the model method of travelling. It carried us six, sometimes eight miles the hour, in comfort and safety.

But who thinks of the lumbering stage coach now, with its snail's pace of eight miles the hour, when the locomotive with its long train of cars, lighted up like the street of a city in motion, rushes over the smooth rails literally with the speed of the wind. The scream of the steam-whistle has succeeded the old stage-horn, and the iron horse taken the place of those of flesh and blood. Change is written in great glowing letters upon everything. It stands out in blazing capitals everywhere. All things are on the move! Forward! and forward!

is the word. And who would, who CAN, stand still amidst the universal rush? Only a century ago, from the valley through which the majestic Hudson rolls its everlasting flood, westward to the mighty Mississippi, westward still to the Rocky Mountains, and yet westward to the Pacific, was one vast wilderness; interminable forests, standing in all their primeval grandeur and gloom; boundless prairies, covered with profitless verdure, over which the silence of the everlasting past brooded; and above all these, mountain peaks, covered with perpetual snows, upon which the eye of a white man had never looked, stood piercing the sky. From the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi, that old forest has been swept away. The broad prairies have been, or are being, subjected to the culture of human industry; even the Rocky Mountains have been overleaped, and beyond them is a great State already admitted into the family of the Union, and a territory teeming with an adventurous and hardy population, knocking at its door for admission. The march of civilization has crossed a continent of more than three thousand miles, sweeping away forests, spreading out green fields, planting cities and towns, making the old wilderness to blossom as the rose, scattering life, activity, progress, all along the road it has travelled. The great rivers that rolled in silence through unbroken forests, have become the highways of trade, upon whose bosoms the white sails of commerce are spread, and through whose waters countless steamboats plough their way. These stupendous changes are the results of human energy, and they reach, in their moral prestige, their progressive influence, through every vein and artery of governmental and social compacts, affecting political inst.i.tutions, shaping national policy, and forcing, by their resistless demonstrations, change and mutations of opinions upon all men.

"As it has been in the past century, so it is now, and so it will be through all the long future. Forward, and forward, is the word, and forward will be the word for centuries to come. And why? Because all men here, in this free Republic, are free to think, free to speak, free to will, free to act. No traditions of the past bind them; no hereditary policy controls their action; no customs, covered with the dust of ages, fetter them; no physical or intellectual gyves, corroded by the rust of centuries, are eating into their flesh. Because thinking American men everywhere live in the present, ignoring and defying the dead past, and building up the mighty future. Because they 'speak their opinions of TO-DAY in words hard as rocks, and their opinions of TO-MORROW in words just as hard, although their opinions of to-morrow may contradict their opinions of to-day.' They are fearless of personal consequences. As free men, they will think, as free men they will speak, and as such they will act, regardless of the jibe and sneer of those who accuse them of change, of inconsistency, of being mutable and unstable of purpose. The point to the march of improvement, the advance in the actualities of life, and ask, 'When every thing else is on the move, shall we stand still? Shall the opinions of a quarter of a century, a decade, a year, a month ago, remain unchanged, immutable, fixed as a star always, amidst the new demonstrations looming up like mountains everywhere around us?'

"Man's life is short at best; a little point of time, scarcely discernible on the map of ages; his aspirations, his hopes, his ambition, more transient than the lightning's flash; but his opinions may tell for good upon that little point occupied by his generation, and he should 'speak them in words hard as rocks.' They may aid in illuminating the darkness of the present, and he should therefore 'speak them in words hard as rocks.' They may have some influence in building up and enn.o.bling human destiny in the future, and he should therefore 'speak them in words hard as rocks,' regardless of the contumely heaped upon him by little minds for having thus spoken them.

What if the ridicule, the denunciations of the unthinking, the sensual, the profligate, the unreflecting fools of the world be poured upon him? What of that? To-day, may be one of darkness and storm. The cloud and the storm will pa.s.s away, and the brightness and glory of the sunlight will be all over the earth to-morrow. Let him 'speak his opinions then of to-day in words hard as rocks, and his opinions of to-morrow in words just as hard.' Let him speak his opinions thus on all subjects within the range of human investigation, upon science, philosophy, politics, religion, morals; and leave to little minds to settle the question of consistency or change. Let his be the eagle's flight towards the sun, and theirs to skim in darkness along the ground, like the course of the mousing owl."

After it became dark, Smith and Martin went out around the lake night hunting, and the rest retired to our tents. We heard the report of Smith's rifle from time to time, and concluded that we should have to court-martial him for a wanton destruction of deer, contrary to the law we had established for our government on that subject. But on his return, we ascertained that, though having had several shots, he had succeeded in killing or, according to Martin's account, even wounding but one, and that a yearling, and the poorest and leanest we had seen since we entered the woods. Though it was thus diminutive in size, Smith declared that he had seen, and shot at, some of the largest deer that ever roamed the forest. He insisted that he had seen some, by the side of which the largest we had looked upon by daylight, were mere fawns, and thereupon he undertook to establish a theory that the large deer fed by night and the smaller ones by day. This would have been all well enough, were it not for the fact, understood by every experienced night-hunter, that by the spectral and uncertain light of the lamp, or torch, a deer, when seen standing in the water, or on the reedy banks, is in appearance magnified to twice its actual dimensions. To this Smith at last a.s.sented, since to deny the proposition, involved the conclusion that he had killed the wrong deer; for the one he shot at, as it stood in the edge of the water, though much smaller than some he had seen, appeared greatly larger than the one he killed.

CHAPTER XV.

HOOKING UP TROUT--THE LEFT BRANCH--THE RAPIDS--A FIGHT WITH A BUCK.

We started down stream in the morning, towards the forks, intending to ascend the left branch to Little Tupper's Lake. We reached the forks at three o'clock. Directly opposite to where the right branch enters, a small cold stream comes in among a cl.u.s.ter of alder bushes on the eastern sh.o.r.e. At the mouth of this little stream, which one can step across, the trout congregate. We could see them laying in shoals along the bottom; but the sun shone down bright and warm into the clear water, and not a trout would rise to the fly, or touch a bait. We wanted some of those trout, and as they refused to be taken in a scientific way and according to art, it was a necessity, for which we were not responsible, which impelled us to a method of capture which, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, we should have rejected. I took off the fly from my line, and fastened upon it half a dozen snells with bare hooks, attached a small sinker, and dropped quietly among them. A large fellow worked his way lazily above where the hooks lay on the bottom, eying me, as if laughing at my folly in attempting to deceive him, with fly or bait. I jerked suddenly, and two of the hooks fastened into him near the tail. That trout was astonished, as were half a dozen or more of his fellows, when they came out of the water tail foremost, struggling with all their might against so vulgar and undignified a manner of leaving their native element. We got as beautiful a string in this way as one would wish to see, albeit they laughed at our best skill with fly and bait; and the cream of the matter was, that we had our pick of the shoal.

We pitched our tents at the foot of the second rapids, on a high, moss-covered bank. The roar of the water sounded deep and solemn among the old woods, as it went roaring and tumbling, and struggling through the gorge. The night winds moaned and sighed among the trees above us, while the night bird's notes came soothingly from the wilderness around as.

"What a strange diversity of tastes exists among the people of this world of ours," said the Doctor, addressing himself to me, as we sat in front of our tents, listening to the roar of the waters. "You and I, I take it, enjoy a fortnight or so, among these lakes, and old forests, with a keener relish than Spalding or Smith here. I judge so, because we indulge in these trips every year, while this is their first adventure of the kind. But even you and I, however much we may love the woods, however we may enjoy these occasional tramps among their shady solitudes, would not enjoy them as a residence; and yet I have sometimes thought I should love to spend the summers in a forest home, alone with nature, with my pen and books, a fishing-rod and rifle to supply my wants, and a friend to talk with occasionally.

"Many years ago, I was out on the Western prairies, some sixty days beyond the region of bread; we had encamped on the banks of a stream, along which a narrow belt of timber grew. More than a quarter of a century has pa.s.sed since I took that trip to look upon the Rocky Mountains. There was no gold region laying beyond them then, or rather, the enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon had not discovered its existence, and the greed of the white man had not made the trail over the mountains, or through their dismal pa.s.ses, a familiar way. Along in the afternoon we were visited by a trapper, who had, in his wanderings, discovered the smoke of our camp fires. He was a weather-beaten, iron man, of the solitudes of nature, who had wandered away from his home in New England, and from civilization, into that limitless wilderness. He was glad to see us, inquired the news from the outer world, talked about York State, Vermont, the Bay State, and then, after an hour's converse, as if his social instincts and sympathies had been satisfied, he shouldered his rifle and started off across the plain, towards a belt of timber lying dim and shadowy, like a low cloud, upon the distant horizon. I watched him for an hour or more, as he trudged away over the rolling prairie, growing less and less to the view, until he became like a speck in the distance, and then vanished from my sight. There was a solemn sort of feeling stole over me, as this lonely hunter wended his way into the deep solitudes of the prairies, to be alone with nature, communing only with himself and the things scattered around him by the great Creator. He seemed to be contented and happy. How different were his tastes from yours or mine, my friends; and yet I felt as though it would have been easy for me to have been like him, an isolated and solitary man, had circ.u.mstances in early life thrown me into a position to have followed the original bent of my nature."

"And yet," said Spalding, "if you will look into the philosophy of the matter, you will see that this diversity of tastes, as you call it, is not so great after all; that is, that the origin of the impulse which sends some men away from society among the solitudes of the wilderness, and of that which holds others in constant communion with the busy scenes of life, is very nearly the same. It is the love of adventure, of excitement, a restlessness for something new, a desire for change. This impulse is controlled, shaped by circ.u.mstances of early life, by education and a.s.sociation; but the foundation of it at last is the thirst for excitement, the love of adventure. One man wanders away into the wilderness in pursuit of it. Another plunges into society in pursuit of the same thing. These hardy men who are here with us, who were reared on the borders of civilization, enjoy the solitudes of their wilderness quite as much, and upon the same general theory, as we do the society to which we have been accustomed; and they plunge alone into the one with quite as much zest as we do into the other, in the pursuit of excitement. Here is Cullen, now, who has spent more time alone in the wilderness than almost any other man outside of the trappers and hunters of the prairies of the West, I appeal to him if it is not rather a love of adventure than of nature which sends him on his solitary rambles in the forests?"

"May be the Judge is right," replied Cullen, as he rubbed the shavings of plug tobacco in the palm of his left hand with the ball of his right, while he held his short black pipe between his teeth, preparatory to filling it, "may be the Judge is right, I rather think he is, and let me tell you I've met with some queer adventures, as you call them, in these woods too; some that I wouldn't have gone out arter if I'd known what they were to've been afore I started. I've been movin' back from what you call civilization for five and twenty year, because I didn't like to live where people were too thick, and where there was nothing but tame life around me. I've a kind of liking for the deer and moose, and haven't any ill will towards, now and then, a wolf or a painter. I like a rifle better than I do the handles of a plow, and I'd rayther bring down a ten-p.r.o.nger than to raise an acre of corn, and I don't care who knows it. There's a place in the world for just such a man as I am yet, and will be till these old woods are gone. Do you see that?" said he, rolling up his pantaloons to his knees, revealing a deep scar on both sides of the calf of his leg, as if it had been pierced by a bullet. "And do you see that?" as he exhibited another deep scar above his knee. "And that?" as he showed another on his arm, above the elbow. "Wal, I reckon I had a time of it with the old buck that made them things on my under-pinin', and on my corn-stealer, as they say out West. Fifteen years ago I was over on Tupper's Lake, shantyin' on the high bank above the rocks, just at the outlet, fishin' and huntin', and layin' around loose, in a promiscuous way, all alone by myself, havin' n.o.body along but the old black dog that you," appealing to Hank Wood, who nodded a.s.sent, remember. "That dog," continued Cullen, "was human in his day, and if anybody has another like him, and wants a couple of months lumberin' in the place of him, I'm ready for a trade; he may call at my shanty. Wal, Crop and I had Seen about all there was to be looked at about Tupper's Lake, and havin' hearn some pretty tall stories about the deer and moose up about the head of Bog River from an Ingen who'd hunted that section, I mentioned to Crop one mornin' that we'd take a trip into them parts.

'Agreed,' said he, or leastwise he didn't say a word agin it, and, by the wag of his tail, I understood him to be agreeable.

"Mud Lake, as you've discovered, aint very near now, and it was a good deal farther off then. The settlements hadn't been pushed so far into the woods then as now. But we put out, Crop and I, for Mud Lake; we pa.s.sed the eight carryin' places afore night, and reached the first chain of ponds while the sun was hangin' like a great torch in the tree-tops. I've seen a good many deer in my day, but the way they stood around in those ponds, and in the shallow water of the river below, among the gra.s.s and pond lilies, was a thing to make a man open his eyes _some._ I saw dozens of 'em at a time, and if it didn't seem like a sheep paster I would'nt say it. I had my pick out of the lot, and knocked over a two-year-old for provision for me and Crop. I aint at all poetical, but if there was ever a matter to make a man feel like stringin' rhymes, that evenin' that Crop and I spent on the lower chain of ponds, or little lakes on Bog River, was a thing of that sort. The sun threw his bright red light on the tops of the mountains away off to the East, spreading it all over the lofty peaks, like a golden shawl, while the gorges and deep valleys around their base rested in deep and solemn shadow. The loon spoke out clear, like a bugle on the lakes, and his voice went echoin' around among the hills; the frogs were out and out jolly, while the old woods were full of happy voices and merry songs as if all nater was runnin' over with gladness and joy; even the night breeze, as it sighed and moaned among the tree-tops, seemed to be whisperin' to itself of the joy and brightness and glory of such an evenin'. As the night gathered, the moon, in her largest growth, came up over the hills and walked like a queen up into the sky, and the bright stars gathered around her, twinklin' and flashin' and dancin', as if merry-makin' in the brightness of her presence. Away down below the bottom of the lake were other mountains and lakes, another moon with bright stars shinin' and twinklin' around her, other broad heavens just as distinct and glorious as those which arched above us. Don't laugh, Judge, for me and Crop saw and heard all that I've been describin' to you, and we felt it too, may be quite as deeply as if we'd been bred in colleges and stuffed with the larnin' of the books.